Mag-log inNICO
The first thing I notice when I wake up isn’t the sunlight or the birds or whatever poetic crap normal people notice.
It’s my dick.
And it’s very, very awake.
I lie there for a minute, staring at the ceiling like maybe the ceiling will explain why I’m starting my day like this. It doesn't.
Morning wood is supposed to be random biology, right? Well, mine’s got a name, an address, and an ego the size of Russia
Sasha.
Why the hell would it be him?
I glare at my dick “Seriously, dude?”
My subconscious has apparently decided to run an exclusive early morning Sasha programme.
Broad shoulders, lean waist, arms that could snap me in half but probably wouldn’t because he enjoys dragging it out. I can practically feel the weight of him, the heat. And those hands…
God, those hands. Big enough to palm my throat. Strong enough to hold me there. I squeeze my eyes shut, and yeah, that’s a bad idea, because now I’m picturing it.
And now I’m doing something about it.
I work myself, slow and deliberate, because apparently I hate myself and like to marinate in the problem. Every stroke just sharpens the mental image: Sasha’s weight pressing me down, his voice low and annoyed like he’s giving me one last chance to behave—and we both know I won’t.
My grip tightens without me telling it to, and my knuckles whiten as I drag my fist slowly from base to tip, just to feel that twitchy, impatient ache build.
The room is quiet except for my breathing. It's like am starring in my own low-budget p**n where the only plot is ‘Nico makes bad choices before breakfast”
I imagine his hand instead of mine. Rougher, bigger and more calloused in places that would scrape just right. My pulse jumps, and my hips follow like they’ve got their own agenda.
It’s ridiculous how clear I can see it: the press of his palm over my throat, the steady weight that says you’re not going anywhere. My back arches, chasing the pressure that’s not even there, teeth gritted like I can will it into existence.
Every shift of my hand is another memory — the cut of his glare when I pushed too far.
I’m breathing harder now, thighs tense, stomach pulling tight as I twist my wrist just enough to make my toes curl. I’m right there, teetering, and I don’t even fight it.
When it hits, it’s sharp, a gut-punch release that drags a groan out of me I’d deny under oath. Hot and messy across my stomach, every muscle jerking like I’ve been yanked out of my own body for a second.
For a moment, I just lie there, breathing hard, staring at the ceiling like maybe it’ll have something to say about the fact I just started my morning jerking off to the human equivalent of a smug smirk.
I should feel relaxed. Clean slate. Ready to start my day.
Instead, irritation simmers in my chest.
Not at the orgasm. That was fine. Perfect, even.
No, I’m irritated because it’s him.
Why would it be him?.
I grit my teeth. This is pathetic. I could think about literally anyone else. Celebrities, random bartenders, my high school gym teacher (okay, no, not that). But nope, it’s him.
By the time I drag myself out of bed, pull on sweatpants, and wander downstairs, I’ve decided I’m not going to look at him. I’m going to get coffee, maybe stare at my phone, and mind my own business.
Which is obviously why the first thing I do is look straight at him.
He’s in the living room, shirtless, mid-workout. Because of course he is. Sweat is sliding down his chest in slow, perfect lines, catching the light like some cheap action movie scene. Every push-up makes his back muscles flex like a damn anatomy lesson, and I have to consciously remind myself that murder is illegal, because no one should be allowed to look that good before I’ve had caffeine.
I try to tell myself that I'm not ogling him, because I'm not. I'm watching the enemy…. Pathetic, I know.
I don't know what it is about him that's got my knickers in a twist. And the guy clearly said he wasn't gay. Hell, I wasn't even fully gay before yesterday. I mean, I always knew I was bisexual. I did try it once, or twice, because why limit myself to one flavour when I can have them all?. But I've never fully come out as bi.
Now? I don't know.
The guy treats the dirt on his shoe better than he treats me, and I don't know why I find that hot. What is wrong with me?.
I should be focusing on my coffee or the door. Or literally anything that doesn’t involve tracking the bead of sweat sliding down his throat. But my gaze keeps dragging back, like I’m hooked, like he’s reeling me in without even trying.
It’s not in admiration. Not exactly. It’s… assessment.
Predator clocking another predator.
Because there’s a way he moves, controlled, that says he doesn’t just train to look good. He trains for the kill.
My arms stay folded, casual, like I’m just passing time. Inside, every nerve’s coiled tight, tuned to the rhythm of his body. His tank rides up just enough to flash the pale scar across his ribs, the kind that tells a story without giving away the ending. I want to know it. I also don't want to care. I don’t care.
My dick twitches, like it's saying ‘yeah you do’. Come on buddy, you have to be on my side.
And then there are his hands.
Veined, scarred and strong. The kind of hands that could pin you down or pull you up. Depending on which side of him you’re on. Perfect for… yeah. That.
My hand tightens on the bannister because my brain has decided now’s a great time to play the reel of something I never asked for.
Different hands. Pale fingers digging in until the world went spotty at the edges. A voice that was supposed to be holy, saying things that still make my skin crawl.
I drag myself back to the present before it pulls me under.
I already crawled out of that place, I'm not going back.
Sasha drops from the bar and lands with the kind of silent control that makes me want to mess up his wardrobe, just for sport. He wipes his hand on his shorts and doesn't even glance in my direction.
Or m
aybe he is looking at me, and he’s just too good at pretending he’s not.
Nico's PovA year.I know it's been a year because Lucy calls every anniversary of everything, and she calls this morning to say happy anniversary and I answer from bed and Sasha, who is already up because he is always already up, hears me talking and brings coffee without being asked, which he has done every morning for three hundred and sixty-five mornings and which I have not yet stopped noticing."Tell her the coffee is good," he says."He says the coffee is good," I tell Lucy."That's the most romantic thing he's ever said," she says."I'll tell him.""Don't, he'll stop doing it." She pauses. "How is it. Really."I look at him reading at the other end of the kitchen table. The pen behind his ear. The briefing he's annotating. The untouched cup, second one, always the second one he forgets about."Good," I say. "Really good.""Good," she says, and I can hear that she means it.We walk in the afternoon.That's the thing we do now, when the work allows and the day is mild enough, we
Sasha's Pov The man's name is Renato Amari.He's fifty-one years old, a former parishioner from the priest's original parish in Salerno, and the letter writer, which confirms the name Nico gave me. He isn't a ghost. He's a man with a grievance and a calculated plan and the very specific confidence of someone who believes that proximity to a secret gives him power over the people in it.I find this out in a room off the main corridor, away from the music and the candlelight, with Dima and one of his men present and Renato in a chair that he chose to sit in himself, which tells me he's been planning this moment.He expected Nico.He got me.That seems to recalibrate him slightly."You're the Russian," he says."I am," I say."Where is he.""With people who care about him." I sit across from him. "Which is not a description that currently applies to you, so."He looks at me. He's not frightened yet, which means he still thinks the letter is leverage."The information I have—" he starts.
Nico's Pov I don't tell him everything that night.Not because I'm hiding it. Because I need to carry it alone for a few hours first, to see what it weighs, to understand what it asks of me before I bring it to him. That's what she's been helping me learn the difference between isolation and processing. I'm not shutting him out. I'm just sitting with my own fear first so it doesn't come out sideways.The letter burns in my pocket like fire, but I push it down. Tonight I need Sasha more than I need air. We are in our bed the night before the pre-wedding event. The lights are low. Sasha lies on his back, watching me with dark, patient eyes.I climb on top of him slowly. “Tonight I want to take care of you,” I whisper. “Let me.”He nods once. For the first time in our healing, he lets me lead.I kiss him deep and slow, tongues sliding together while my hands roam over his chest. I feel his heart beating fast under my palm. I reach down and stroke his cock until it is hard and leaking. S
Sasha's PovFederico Vescari is twenty-six years old and has been running a quiet parallel operation inside his own family for fourteen months. That's what the full picture looks like when Dima lays it out on the table Thursday morning. Someone taught him how to build it, which means Federico is not the origin, he's a channel.We already know the origin.Papadis."He's been feeding route intelligence to the Greek faction since before the Karalis proposal," Dima says. "The proposal was partly built on what Federico gave them. They knew the Vescari logistics well enough to design terms your side couldn't absorb without destabilising the Bratva northern agreements."Nico is sitting across the table from me. He's been still since Dima started talking, the particular stillness that isn't calm, that's something held in place."He was at the engagement announcement dinner," Nico says."Yes," Dima says."He toasted us." His voice is completely flat. "He stood up and toasted us."Nobody says
Nico's Pov We find him in two days.A safehouse in the Belyayevo district, registered to a shell company that took Dima's analyst twelve hours to trace. Ground floor, back exit onto a service lane, two men outside who are not particularly good at looking like they're not outside a safehouse.Sasha pulls the car to a stop half a block down."East entrance," he says. "You take it. I'll go through the front when you're in position.""How long.""Three minutes."I check the time. "Three minutes," I say.I get out.The service lane is dark and narrow and smells like wet concrete and somewhere behind me a cat does something in a bin. I move along the wall to the back door and I wait. The two minutes feel longer than two minutes, which they always do when you're standing in a lane by yourself about to go through a door.My phone vibrates once. Sasha's signal.I go through the door.The man is at a table in the main room. Mikhail Petrov, twenty-nine, Bratva auxiliary intelligence, recruited
Sasha's Pov My therapist sends a follow-up note, which she doesn't usually do. Three lines, the gist of it is that what Nico said in the room was the right thing at the right time and that I should let it land rather than filing it and moving past it, which is what I would normally do, which she apparently knows, which means she's been paying attention.I read it standing at the kitchen counter. I put the phone down. I stand there for a moment.Then I let it land.It takes about thirty seconds. It feels like something settling in the foundation. Nothing dramatic. Just a weight redistributing itself into a position it was always supposed to occupy and didn't.Nico comes in, sees my face, says nothing, pours his coffee, and sits down.That's it. That's all.I sit too."Wednesday session or Thursday," he says, meaning which day to book the next one."Thursday," I say. "I have the port authority follow-up Wednesday morning.""Thursday then." He opens his laptop. "Lucy sent forty-seven p
SASHAChapter 50 – Sasha’s POVI Get ItThe session ends with a low whimper escaping my lips. The room spins as I try to make out her silhouette. My body aches like a war was waged on it.The word for it is physiotherapy but nah, what Sorellina does should be illegal.No, not should be—it is illega
DOMENICO I barely slept. Two hours in, and I was choking on a fucking nightmare. The part that irks me the most is that I woke up expecting Sasha to hold me and tell me it would all be okay—but he wasn’t there.I've gotten so used to waking up tangled with him that even now, in the afternoon, I st
NICOThe flight back to Naples was a blur. I stared out the window at the endless blue, willing it to swallow me whole. But the plane touched down anyway, depositing me into the viper’s nest I'd fled not so long ago.The estate loomed at the end of the driveway—Giusepp
SASHAShe undoes her mask with slow precision, it hits the floor with a soft thud.Sorrelina Vescari, aka Svetlana.I always wondered how a child as young as her could be so comfortable inflicting so much pain on others. The first time I saw her, I almost







